A Family Game
by ZuWang
Summary: When a mythical being traps Sam in his memories and threatens his life and his family, Sam and Dean must cooperate to hunt in the real world and in the dream world simultaneously.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Gutted

The distinctive growl of the classic Impala gave Jody Mills a grand total of 30 seconds' warning that the Winchester boys planned to crash her and Claire's quiet week away in the woods. She marked the place in her book ( _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_ – she'd finally gotten around to reading the series based on her 'daughter's' recommendations), and stood to open the cabin's front door. The smile on her face died as the door was flung open, revealing the Winchesters. Both were covered in blood, and Sam was barely standing, his right arm draped across Dean's shoulders, his left gripped tightly across his abdomen. Sam's shirt hung in tatters, and blood liberally dripped from tears in the skin beneath, splattering to the cabin's wooden floor.

Dean saw Jody, but if the startled look on her face registered at all, it didn't seem to matter to the man. He grunted, "Good. You're here. Sammy needs help."

 _Thanks for stating the obvious._

Dean carried, more than assisted, his brother to the couch Jody had recently vacated. _Harry Potter_ was knocked unceremoniously to the floor.

"What the Hell happened?" Jody asked. She closed the door as Claire emerged from deeper in the cabin.

"Manticore." Dean grated out between his teeth. He attempted to set his enormous brother down gently, but that proved impossible. Sam stifled a moan as he dropped to the couch cushions.

"Manticore?" Jody repeated. She would never get used to her friends – her family – using words like that as if they were real. Never get used to them _being_ real, despite repeated examples. She fought the urge to reply with the purely logical " _…aren't they mythical?_ " Of course manticores are mythical. That doesn't mean they aren't likely to try to gut a Winchester.

And "gutted" was an apt description. Dean carefully shifted his brother's arms away from where they gripped his stomach, and lifted the shreds of Sam's shirt. The action revealed four long, parallel tears in the man's flesh. They were deep and jagged as they wrapped around Sam's left side and across his abdomen. Sam's muscles glistened within the gashes, clearly visible despite a disturbing amount of dark blood. As the fabric pulled away from his wounds, a "Gah!" sound escaped Sam's lips, and he rolled to his right side on the couch, pulling his legs protectively toward his abdomen.

Dean held Sam to still him. His voice was low and firm, a practiced not-calm as he murmured "I know man, but I've gotta see." He pulled a folding knife from his pocket and sliced open the top of Sam's left jeans leg, revealing two puncture wounds. They weren't as wicked-looking as the four lacerations, but they trickled with blood and some sort of black goo glistened at the center. "Shit." Dean looked around quickly, sighting Claire. "You have holy water?" She nodded. "Get it."

Claire half moved to comply before turning back to the older hunter. "Shouldn't we call Castiel? He could help."

Dean didn't think before beginning to respond, "Cas is…"

Sam finished the thought between gasping breaths. "Cas can't help. He's got troubles of his own." He grunted again, his hands holding tightly to the couch below him to keep them from instinctively grabbing at the wounds across his stomach again. His eyes sought out Dean's in an attempt to center himself.

Dean looked back at his brother, now curled protectively on his side and now bleeding all over the cabin's soft, cozy sofa. Dean's eyes sparked with barely contained panic, but he forced a grin and a joking tone as he teased "He got you, didn't he? Fuzzy fugly bastard."

Sam huffed an equally fraudulent-sounding responding laugh as he (equally unsuccessfully) attempted to hide the pain in his own eyes. "He did." Grunt. "The bastard," gritted from between his teeth. Then his eyes widened and he took a deep breath as he saw Claire hand Dean a water bottle marked with a cross. His brother's mumbled "sorry man, gotta do it" barely registered before the holy water was poured over his leg and FIRE seemed to scorch every coherent thought away. Dean repeated the process twice – once more on the leg and once on his stomach – and each time the wounds bubbled and steamed. Sam writhed on the sofa as he fought to remain cognizant of the world around him, focusing upon his breathing as their father had taught him years before. Tears streamed from his eyes, mixing with the sweat which broke out across his face, and unintelligible words were torn from him in near-strangled gasps. His mind found and then clung to Dean's voice as it repeated, "I know man. I got you. I know. I'm sorry." When it was over, Sam lay gasping and trembling.

Dean surveyed the damage. He didn't even look up at Jody or Claire as he ordered, "If you got more I'm gonna need it. And the first aid kit. Front seat of the car." His voice gentled as he continued, talking with a tone he reserved for scared children and his baby brother, "I'm gonna sew you up. Good as new. I got you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I got you now. I got you."

Sam nodded shortly, his battle to stay conscious taking most of his energy, and whispered "Not your fault" past his still-clenched teeth. Sam tilted his head to take his first close look at the evidence of the manticore's razor-sharp claws, and nearly passed out at the attempt. Willing himself to hold onto tenuous consciousness, Sam tried again to smile, succeeding only in forming a dimpled grimace. "Think it's 165?"

Jody rushed back into the room in time to hear the comment. As she handed Dean the brothers' well-stocked first aid kit, she flashed Dean a confused look. He explained to Jody, "Number of stiches. Record's a hundred 'n sixty four. Sammy thinks he's got a chance to beat it." Dean just forced out a guffaw. "Huh uh. No way man. Dad's got that record all tied up." He knew the comment had only been borne of his brother's false machismo, and only said for Dean's benefit, but appreciated Sam's effort.

"Your lives are weird," commented Claire in a bewildered and somewhat jealous tone, handing Dean another bottle of holy water. She pretended not to notice Jody's cocked eyebrow. _OK, maybe_ our _lives are weird._

Dean looked at his brother's face, trying to gauge Sam's current coping ability. The younger man squinted his eyes closed, took a breath, and grated out "Do it." He tried to remain stoic but it was a lost cause. He gave in and screamed as the blessed water once again cascaded over his wounds. After it was done, he lay again panting, spent.

In the quiet which remained behind for a moment, Jody asked in a low voice, "Why holy water?"

Dean replied, "Poison. Manticores have poison in their tail spines, and holy water counteracts most poison." He considered, looking first at Jody and then Claire and finally settling his eyes firmly on Jody's. "You think you can help me sew him up?"

Jody's eyebrows shot up, her eyes widening. "Sew him up? Like, stitches? Here? Don't you think we should get him to the hospital?"

"If I thought I could have gotten him to a hospital, I would have taken him there. Besides, they're not going to know how to deal with this. I didn't know you'd be here, but I knew I could get him here and find some real supplies. I knew I could get him sewed up at least." His eyes connected with hers, trapping her in place. "Can you do this?"

She swallowed, "Yeah."

"Good." He looked back down at his barely conscious brother, smoothing the hair out of Sam's eyes with a gentle hand. "Good. OK. Claire?" The young hunter started forward. "We need boiling water and as much dental floss as you've got. I won't have enough in my kit. And…"

"You need dental floss?"

"For stitches. None of the mint stuff."

Claire started toward the back of the cabin, but Jody stopped her with a hand. "I've got suture materials in the car. Get those instead." She looked back at Dean. "Advantages of being a first responder… I figured if I'm going to be responsible for Claire, I should get hold of some supplies."

"Thank you for that." Dean looked sincere.

"Yeah."

Dean guided Jody through her first few stitches, and then took up a needle of his own. Chuck knew that there was work enough here for two. While they sewed, Claire slowly dribbled holy water over the puncture wounds – two holes left behind where the manticore had thrown spikes from its tail. They continued to bubble, but not to spit and steam as they had during the first dosing. Sam tried to hold out – to breathe through the pain—but as his adrenaline crashed, so did his will. For several minutes he fell into a two-part harmony with Dean, short hissing breaths and grunts framing Dean's murmured reassurances that "I'm sorry. I've got you." But before long his vision narrowed and he slowly glided into unconsciousness.

 _Sam startled, opening his eyes to find himself in a blank, white world. The brightness of the space around him highlighted the half feline/half human features of the manticore. "Took you long enough," said the lithe monstrosity before him. "I don't know if I should be impressed or insulted."_

" _Huh?" Sam looked down, patting his body. Despite an echoing ache, his torso seemed whole and healthy, lacking the devastating wounds he knew it bore in the real world. "Where am I?"_

" _Where would you like to be?"_

 _Sam raised an eyebrow, "Is that some kind of riddle?"_

" _A riddle. I like riddles." The manticore spoke smoothly, stretching its words as its body stretched. The thing's voice reminded Sam of that dragon from_ The Neverending Story _movie he'd seen as a kid. Falcor. That was his name. The thing moved like Falcor too. Sinuous and flowing, the manticore wound its way around Sam, slinking and rubbing against him like a massive house cat. And the monster_ was _massive, well longer than Sam was tall, its back higher than Sam's waist. As it circled Sam, the graceful creature continued talking, almost as if to itself. "Riddles. Yes. My cousin told me riddles. I like them."_

" _Your cousin?" Sam tried to back away from the thing._

 _A hissing sound came from its human lips. "Oh, Samuel. I thought you were better read than that." It writhed around the hunter again, pushing him with lazy strength, almost gently denying Sam's intended retreat. "Think now, boy. If we're going to play at riddles, you're going to have to think."_

 _Sam took a breath. A manticore's cousin. Riddles. Of course. The manticore is native to Persia, but from a species standpoint it's closely related to—a 'first cousin' of—the Egyptian creature with a love of riddles and labyrinths. "The sphinx."_

 _The beast purred_ PURRED _his answer, "Betterrrr."_


	2. Chapter 2: A riddle inside an enigma

**Thank you for the positive response to this! In answer to the question I always get - this story is 100% written, start to finish. I will upload chapters daily, so long as my internet holds out.**

Chapter 2: A riddle inside an enigma inside a taco

As Sam lost consciousness, his body sagged in relaxation. Dean's heart clenched. His hand shot out, dropping the needle, as he grabbed for Sam's throat. Feeling a strong, if slow, pulse, the older Winchester sucked in a massive breath and worked to steady his own. He nodded to Jody, who had also paused in her stitching with a look of alarm. "He's out. Keep going." As Dean and Jody had worked Sam's bleeding had slowed, but the younger Winchester needed his wounds fully closed, and fast. Dean and Jody sewed on, while Claire continued to clean the puncture wounds with holy water. They bubbled in a desultory way from time to time as holy water found a grain of poison.

***************************SPN********************************

 _"So you never answered my question." Sam stated, "Where are we?"_

 _"I did answer," replied the catlike monster, sitting back on its haunches in a self-satisfied manner, its tail-serpent lashing from side to side. "Yes I did."_

 _"You asked me where I want to be. That's not an answer."_

 _"It's not an answer you like." The manticore responded. "It is, however, an answer. Where do you WANT to be, Samuel Campbell Winchester?"_

 _Sam winced at the use of his full name, but decided not to call the beast on it. He named the first nice-seeming place that came to his mind. "Hawaii."_

 _"You've never been to Hawaii," the manticore stated, purring again. "Pick again."_

 _"Somewhere I've been? The beach. California." And then they were. The pure white world he'd woken to faded and the man and manticore appeared on a sunny afternoon on a beach. The smell of salt water and a steady warm breeze filled Sam's senses. The manticore padded down the high-tide line, leaving footprints in wet sand and clearly enjoying the feel of the California sun on its back. Sam looked around, remembering this place exactly. It was half an hour from the apartment he'd shared with Jess a lifetime ago. He'd never seen Half Moon Bay empty before though. The silence was broken only by the sound of waves as they erased the evidence of the monster's passing. He pondered, realizing, "You couldn't take me to somewhere I'd never been. This is a memory. We're inside a memory?"_

 _The purring intensified. "Verrrry good, Sam. You might survive this game after all." It continued walking, and Sam looked around before turning to follow resignedly. Where else was he supposed to go, anyway?_

 _"Game?"_

 _"A game of riddles." The beast said, sounding annoyed as his purring stopped. "You chose it. Keep up, boy."_

**************************SPN*****************************

Dean watched closely as Jody completed her last stitch, nodding at the sheriff's technique. She'd certainly gotten enough practice; between the two of them, they'd placed 121 sutures into Sam's abdomen – 27 of them in the muscle beneath his skin. That was something you couldn't do with dental floss, and Dean was again relieved that Jody and Claire had been at the cabin when they'd arrived.

Claire broke the silence a moment later. "Not a record." She sounded spent, her voice flat and blank.

"No," Dean confirmed, instinctively feeling for Sammy's pulse again. "He's gonna be pissed."

Jody surveyed her living room. It was blood spattered and muddied. _Harry Potter_ lay open and face down in a puddle of pink-tinged holy water near the ruined couch. As she allowed herself to think normally again, Jody realized she didn't know what had happened in the minutes or hours before the Winchesters had crashed through her cabin door, destroying the room as well as her peaceful weekend away. Had it really only been two hours before? She took a breath. "So," she prompted. "Manticore?"

"Yeah." Dean said, staring at his blood-reddened shirt and hands, and lowering his body onto the floor with a groan. The seat of his pants dampened with that same bloodied holy water. Dean didn't seem to notice. He leaned against the couch, his shoulder touching Sam's, taking strength from the sound of his brother's steady breathing. "We tracked it to the area. Been taking hikers over by Allen's Point."

"If it's a manticore, it's a long way from home…" There was a note of question in Claire's voice, asking for confirmation of what she was pretty sure she already knew.

Dean breathed out a cynical 'ha' and turned his eyes upward to the young hunter. "You're not wrong. Someone decided to _import_ it, if you'd believe." He considered Claire for a moment before adding, "That's good. You're reading some of the lore books we sent?" She nodded. "Good. You wanna give Jody the backstory, and I'll fill her in on this hunt?"

Claire half smiled, glanced at Sam, and swallowed the pride she had felt at Dean's compliment. She began "So, OK…yeah…manticores are actually sort of interesting. So get this…" she paused to look at Dean, who had again snorted. No further information seemed to be coming from the man, so she continued, "A manticore is from Persia – modern day Iran - and it's similar to a sphinx. Just like the sphinx, it's made up of a mix of things. Like, it has a body of a lion, a human head, and wings. Depending on what story you read, its tail is said to be either like a dragon or a scorpion…"

"More like a snake, and no wings – that surprised Sammy too." cut in Dean, who'd learned from experience rather than from Pliny the Elder's musings.

"…and it shoots poison spines with its tail." The two women's eyes shifted to take in the punctures on Sam's leg. "It shoots the spines, and they paralyze the victim. Then it eats people once they're paralyzed. Like, it eats everything. The whole person, clothes, bones, any possessions it can find. Even family of the victim if they can find 'em. Anything that smells like it's been in contact with the person. It's like the person never even existed by the end."

"Right," Dean confirmed without looking up, "and that's what clued in Sammy to the monster's identity. People were disappearing completely, like they'd never existed at all. The hikers, their gear, even the paths they'd hiked to get there were licked clean. Now, that's weird, even for us. But the weirdest thing was, people were disappearing all over the place who had nothing to do with the trails. Friends and family from all over the place – some who were nowhere near here - up and disappeared. The one survivor we could talk to was on the trails with a buddy and said he saw a talking mountain lion, but there aren't any mountain lions around here anymore, and lions aren't really big talkers anyway. He said his buddy got eaten, but the authorities couldn't find any blood or hair or anything. They figured the guy and his buddy got high, got lost, and his buddy wandered off and couldn't find him anymore." He stopped his monologue to consider his brother's face. "It was everywhere. Like, the furthest out was by us, all the way in freaking Kansas. She was the best friend of some guy who was hiking up here. I don't know how he saw the pattern, but Sammy figured it out last week." He looked up at Jody, slowly rubbing his hands together. Dried blood flaked from them. "Lots of people disappearing without a trace, all part of connected groups, but with no seeming connection _between_ the groups. It came onto our radar 'cause we were looking for the Darkness. We thought at first…" he looked down at his hands, "I thought 'till today…it was Amara taking people. But Sammy found the pattern. All of 'em either were hiking at Allen's Point or had a really close friend or relative who was. Since it was in your neck of the woods, we tried calling you day before yesterday."

"We were here at the cabin. No cell phone reception up here unless the wind is blowing just right."

Dean nodded. "Yeah. That's what I figured. 'S why, when Sammy got hurt, I came straight here."

Claire looked at Sam. "So, manticore poison paralyzes its victims, right? Why isn't he paralyzed? I mean, he's not moving, but he's breathing so he's not paralyzed, right? And he walked in here…sort of…"

"A couple of reasons, probably." Dean turned to study Sam's face, which still looked so innocent when the younger man relaxed. Totally unfair. He wished the man would wake up, but with the venom and that kind of blood loss… his hand again reached out as Dean looked for – and found – Sammy's pulse. "First off, Sammy's a freakin' moose. He's a big guy. It takes a lot of poison to put him down, and only 2 spikes got him. Thing threw off like 20. Second, we always have holy water on hand." He locked Claire in a glare. "Keep holy water with you everywhere. Hoard the stuff. We used about a gallon of it before we even got here." _And don't that sting like a bitch_ he thought, but didn't say. "Also, maybe the lore's wrong about the paralyzing thing. It was wrong about the wings." He returned to studying his brother's face, and saw Sam's eyes twitch under his lids. Was his brother coming around? "Sammy? You hear me?" but there was no response. He watched his brother's face for a moment longer, and could almost swear he heard the younger man's voice.

As the pause stretched long, Jody studied Dean. Finally, she cut in, "Are you OK? You're not hurt too, are you?"

Dean's eyes flared, "I'm fine."

 _'Fine' as defined by a Winchester._ Jody sighed, knowing she was defeated before she even started this argument. "At the least, you need to clean yourself up. Sam's not going anywhere for right now." For a moment Jody thought he'd refuse even a shower. Instead, Dean considered his brother's face for a few more seconds, sighed, looked at his own hands and clothing, and stood.

"You'll watch him? Tell me when he wakes up? I'll just be gone a sec."

"Go. Shower's down the hall. I'll be right here."

************************SPN************************

 _The manticore paced down the beach, its feline body writhing in Sam's remembered California sunshine. It purred loudly, a rumbling, discordantly happy sound. "Pleasant. This is a pleasant place. You do have some pleasant memories. Some are not. This one…this is where you wish to be?"_

 _"I WISH to be with my brother. I WISH to go home." Sam's frustration was audible as he stopped following the beast. "Where are you walking to?"_

 _The manticore paused, looked back, hissed, and raised its too-human eyebrows. "I am walking nowhere. And you will go nowhere either until and unless you answer my riddles correctly. We're playing a game, remember?"_

 _Sam sighed, crossing his arms and standing braced on the shoreline, the lines of his body clearly saying 'get on with it then.'_

 _The manticore's purr returned, the sound obviously his equivalent of laughing at this obstinate human's impatience. "Stubborn. Stubborn." Purr. "This is what your brother calls 'bitchface'?" Purr, "Appropriate…well… Then let the games begin." It sat, resting on its haunches and facing the younger Winchester brother. "There will be ten humans. I will place them in a line, in height order, with the tallest human – that would be you," (purr) "in the back, and the smallest human – a child – in the front. Each of you can see all humans ahead of you, but if you look behind you, I will eat you all."_

 _Sam frowned. No such line appeared. "What are you playing at? What child?"_

 _"SILENCE" the manticore trumpeted, hissing once again. "Each of you will wear a hat of my choosing. Each hat will be either black or white, but you will not know what color your own hat is. You may each state one word, either 'black' or 'white'. If you say any other word, I will eat you all. If you attempt to signal to one another, I will eat you all. I am inside your mind, as you know. I will see immediately if you cheat in our game." It squinted its eyes, smirking at the tall man before it and wearing a considering, all-too-human smile. "I will start my dining with the child. You will be last. You may watch." Purr. Purr. Purr._

 _"This is a riddle. There is no child."_

 _"DO YOU WISH ME TO EAT THE CHILD? I WILL SHOW YOU THE CHILD. I will eat it. As your brother says, YOU WILL SHUT YOUR FUGLY FACE, and speak again to me only when you know the answer to my riddle."_

 _Sam shut his mouth, and waited._

 _"I repeat. If any of you tries to signal the others, or speak any word other than 'black' or 'white', or if you look right, or left, or behind you, I will eat you all. Your challenge is to guess the color of your own hat. If no more than two of you guess incorrectly, you may live. If three state the incorrect color, I will eat you all. Before we begin, you and your compatriots have three minutes to plan a strategy. What strategy will you choose?"_

*********************SPN**********************

Dean emerged from his shower less than five minutes after he'd left the living room, hustling to rejoin his brother. The man remained where he'd been. "How is he?"

Jody, seated in the room's only armchair, looked to the wounded man on her couch. "No change." In the few minutes he'd been gone, she and Claire had cleaned away the medical supplies and mopped up the gory mix of spent holy water and blood on the floor. _Nothing to be done about the couch. It's going to have to be tossed._ They'd also placed a blanket over Sam's resting form. He looked now as if he was sleeping. Not a comfortable sleep; the younger Winchester's face was tight, lines of stress obvious to any. _He's always had such an expressive face._ Dean put his hand on his brother's browline, smoothing the wrinkles there and feeling for fever. None yet. With such severe injuries, it was likely a matter of time. Dean looked around, expecting but not seeing Claire.

"She went out for supplies," Jody answered the unspoken question. "Food – you eat more than we do – and I'm guessing more holy water. She thinks you'll need it."

"She's probably not wrong." Dean moved to the front of the couch, again seating himself on the floor, close enough to touch his brother at need. His own need, more likely than Sam's. Sam had lost a lot of blood. He'd likely be out for a while.

"How far from the cabin were you when it happened?" _How long was he bleeding?_ She didn't dare ask it that way. Dean was worried enough.

"About ten minutes from Allen's Point. Took us about twenty to get here." As he spoke, Dean's eyes never left his brother. Winchesters are a single-minded lot.

Jody considered the pair for a moment. There was concern, worry, on Dean's face, but something else as well. Guilt? She began to ask him about it, but in an instant the expression cleared. Dean's body drooped, his breathing evening out as he relaxed to the floor soundlessly.

"Dean?" She leaned forward, checking the man's pulse, opening his eyes. "Dean?" No response. Scared she'd missed something, Jody searched the man's body for wounds, but found none beyond scratches and bruises. These she dosed with the last dregs of Claire's holy water, but got no bubbling response. She ran to grab her laptop. The likelihood that Wikipedia would have an authoritative entry on manticores is thin, but when it's all you have, it's where you start.

**************************SPN***********************

 _Nine men, women, and children appeared on the beach in front of Sam. Dean was there, as were Jess, Bobby, and Jo. A clerk from the bookstore nearest the bunker in Kansas and a waitress Dean flirted with each morning at a local diner looked bewildered to have appeared here. The child was a playmate from Sam's youth; upstate New York if he remembered correctly. Memories, each and every one, they were not all the 'close personal friends' who had died in previous manticore attacks. Sam and Dean had precious few of those._

 _The visitors wore no hats; Sam guessed these would be added when the 'game' began._

 _Sam's mind raced._

 _"Focus," Sam said aloud, bringing the attention of the confused group to himself. "If it's real, it's real. Either way, we answer the riddle." He heard a chuffing, purring laugh behind him._

 _"Oh, it's real, silly human. Play my game. Play it well." The manticore began to pace away, but turned and reminded Sam over his shoulder, "I will return in three minutes."_

 _"Three minutes?" Dean's eyes focused on Sam, "What does he mean? What game?"_

 _"Riddles." Crap. Could he remember the entire riddle? He began to outline it for the assembled group, who stared at him in disbelief and horror._

 _Ten people. He looked around. Check._

 _Black and white hats – not yet, but expected._

 _Only able to see the people in front of you._

 _No signals._

 _Each of the nine members of the group had been elsewhere a moment ago, and each struggled to understand if they were in a dream. Each independently came to the decision that he or she would act as if this were at the least a nightmare-driven imperative. 'Not real and therefore not important' was not a risk any was willing to take._

 _Several had been in heaven a moment prior. They knew this was real. There are no nightmares in heaven._

 _"So what if we just say the color of the hat in front of us, then the person in front of us says that color, and he's safe, right? We just tell each other what hats we're wearing." Dean answered, stepping forward._

 _"No," said Sam, having already considered that and discarded it. "Then every second person risks being wrong. I tell you your hat is black. We both say 'black'. Maybe we're lucky, but maybe you're right, but I'm wrong. Then Jess tells Bobby his hat is white. Maybe her hat is white, maybe it's black, but she'll never know. It goes that way down the line. There are five right answers, and five 'maybies'. And we only get two wrong answers."_

 _Dean followed the logic, impressed as usual with his brother's quick mental gymnastics. Jess had been nodding along, as if she'd also worked through that non-solution. She walked forward, taking Sam's hand. Not for the first time, it occurred to Dean that Jess would have been a good match for his brother. He sighed. "So… what then?"_

 _Jess answered. "It's a code. We need a code with two code words; black and white."_

 _Sam picked up the train of thought immediately, adding, "A binary code, which gives the receiver one piece of information – what hat am I wearing – while cluing in the next person in line as well. We can't have every other person guessing."_

 _Now Jo spoke, "Binary code seems simple, but with enough repetitions it can get complex. Each repetition you add another to the set of ones or zeros." She looked around to the sound of a surprised snort, shrugging as she saw Dean's incredulous look. "I have a lot of time these days, and Ash likes to talk."_

 _Sam smiled at her. It was good to see her; real or not. "Right. So, with ten of us saying either 'black' or 'white', each next person in line will get one byte of extra information. We need a binary…code…I've got it."_

 _The group's focus shifted entirely to him._

 _Dean's eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline. "You've got it?"_

 _"Yeah. So get this…"_

Less than fifteen minutes after he'd fallen inexplicably unconscious, Dean awoke. His first words were "I'll be Damned. Again."

Claire was beside him in a moment with a bottle. He took a swallow, wrinkled his nose, and looked at it closely. Not whiskey.

*********************SPN********************

"Holy water?" _Please tell me there's a reason I just drank water._

Claire nodded. "We were worried you might have been poisoned too. You passed out. Jody's researching some longer-acting poison antidotes now."

Dean took a moment to collect his thoughts, and then explained what had happened.

"So…what was the answer?" asked Jody when he finished.

Dean turned to look at his brother, pride evident in his face. "A code. He stood in back. He told us he'd say 'black' if the number of black hats in front of him was even, 'white' if the white hats were even. He said black. So I knew that, including me, there were an even number of black hats in front of Sam. I saw two black hats. So I said 'white' – the color my hat HAD to be, 'cause if it was black, I'd see an odd number of black hats. Then Jess, who stood in front of me knew that to me, there were still an even number of black hats. She only saw one black hat in front of her, so she knew hers must be black. And it went on from there." He checked Sam's pulse. "You're a smart mother fudger, you big old nerd."

"So was it real?" asked Claire quietly. "And if it was, why did you come back but not him?"

"I don't know."

**************************SPN******************

 _On a remembered beach in Sam's weary mind, the manticore purred his pleasure._

 _"Very good, Samuel. You play our game well."_

 _"I've played it. I won. It's time to let me go." His anger and impatience showed in his glare, and was reflected back with a flash of the manticore's eyes._

 _"Go?" it snarled, "Go. Yes. This time I believe I will choose the setting of the next riddle. Somewhere warm, I think. Ah, here."_

 _And they were in the cage._


	3. Chapter 3: King and Queen of the Nerds

Chapter 3: King and Queen of the Nerds

Dean hovered over his brother, re-checking the stitches and the puncture wounds. One look at those had him reaching for the holy water, dribbling it over the area which now looked darkened and bruised. It bubbled and steamed again, and Sam groaned even in his state. "I'm so sorry brother," Dean once again muttered.

"Dean," Jody interrupted him, a firm tone in her voice. "What do you have to be sorry about? You got him here as fast as you could. Stop beating yourself up. Sam's strong and he's smart. He's going to get through this."

"You don't understand."

"Explain it to us. Maybe we can help."

Dean glanced up from Sam's face, his hands still busy tucking the blanket protectively around his overgrown baby brother. He looked at Jody, and then Claire, and the guilt and embarrassment were plain to see in his green eyes.

"Yeah," Claire cut in. "We can help. We can go with you. Kill this thing. You said you know where it hunts. Let's hunt it. We can do this."

Dean's eyes found hers and locked on, anger quickly replacing guilt in their depths. "Do you think I want you anywhere near that thing?" He erupted. "I won't let you get hurt too. I owe it to Sammy to not let you or anyone else get hurt."

Now it was Claire's turn to feel her anger building, "You won't LET ME get hurt? You won't LET ME near that thing? Who the Hell do you think you are? I'm a hunter, Dean. In addition to my lady parts, I've got a pile of kills under my belt…"

"WHOA, whoa, whoa, whoa," cut in Jody before this got too far. "He wasn't saying you can't go after it because you're a woman." She turned, crossed her arms in front of her, and looked directly into Dean's eyes, "were you." That last was a statement, not a question.

Dean looked away first, clearing his throat. "Erhm. No. Not what I was saying. I'm just saying, I already saw Sammy get hurt going after this thing. I'm not letting anyone else go off after it." He hedged again, looking for a way to gain time. "No one. With man parts or lady parts." The two women continued to stare at him, impatiently. This wasn't working. "OK. Think of it this way. To hunt this thing, we need to go together, and we need to STAY together, but we can't guarantee we'll be together if this freaking man-cat can zap me into Sam's mind anytime it wants to." His voice lowered as he looked back at Sam. "We can't do this alone. Any of us."

Realization dawned on Jody. She spoke quietly, "Dean? Sam wasn't alone, was he? You were with him when the manticore did this to him."

Claire's eyes opened wide as she caught Jody's meaning, and she stared at Dean in horror. Dean wouldn't have let his brother go hunting alone, would he?

"I didn't believe him." Dean's voice was almost a whisper now. He allowed himself to slip down, until he was perched, half sitting-half leaning, on the edge of the couch next to Sam. He swallowed, and his voice was a bit stronger as he continued, "I didn't believe him. He was saying, 'it's a manticore', and I was saying 'there are no manticores in America. It has to be Amara.' I mean, people disappearing without a single trace that they were ever there? The geographic area this spread over? It couldn't all be the work of same being, unless it was Amara. That kind of power had to be the Darkness. So I wasn't looking for some huge, mythical imported zoo animal from Hell by way of Persia." He looked up at his stunned audience, these women who had become his extended family. "I wasn't looking in the right places."

"Where were you looking?" Jody prompted.

"I wasn't. I was just following along, telling Sam this was stupid. He turned around, told me we'd just check this out, and then there it was." He looked from Claire to Jody again, desperate now to be understood and believed. "I didn't leave him. I'd never leave Sammy alone on a hunt – even a hunt I think is idiotic. But I freaking hate hiking, and I just…I was there, but I wasn't all there. I'd drifted off. My mind was on Amara and I missed the signals I should have been seeing. And then I distracted Sammy, and he..." Dean's voice faded.

"…And now you think this is your fault?" This time it was Claire who made him continue. "You were there. Maybe you were a bit sidetracked, but you were there. We all have bad days. If you're going to take this kind of responsibility, there must have been more to it. What went wrong?"

Dean grunted his patented cynical half-laugh. "I forgot the matches."

"What?"

"To kill it, you have to burn a manticore with holy fire. We both had oil in our packs, but I forgot my matches 'cause my mind was somewhere else. Sammy had some, but his hands were kinda full trying to keep the damned thing from eating his face." Dean could still see the spray of blood in his mind's eye. The manticore had spun Sam's enormous body around with the first swing of its paws, ripping that long gash across his brother's torso as if the hunter had been made of damp paper. Sam had tried to keep its jaws at bay, but the blood... Dean thought of his own mad scramble. Of spraying the monster with holy oil. Of the sudden realization that he had no way to light it...

Dean suddenly felt Sam tense next to him, and he found focus once more on his brother's face. Sam's brow was again wrinkled in response to some internal stress. The elder brother tried to smooth the lines, but Sam was deep in whatever worry the manticore had given him. Dean settled for resting his hand on the back of Sam's neck, hoping Sam could at least sense his presence. He looked at Claire again. "I tossed a whole bottle of holy oil on it, but while I was realizing I didn't have a damned light, the manticore took off." His eyes searched hers, hoping Claire would understand what he was telling her. "No matches. It was a rookie mistake. I'm no rookie."

"And I am." Claire supplied.

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "And now that fugly bastard knows I'm coming; and that I know how to kill it. And me being 'a little sidetracked' don't have nothing on if I'm actually zapped into the manticore's game at will. We'll be sitting ducks. If you go with me, YOU'LL be sitting ducks, and I can't let that happen."

"We're going. But we're going to be ducks who bring matches." Claire's tone was final. Rookie or not, she was going with Dean. "Stop beating yourself up you moron. We're going to end this."

Jody nodded. "…so. A plan." And then she and Claire went limp.

********************************SPN*********************************

 _The instant Sam materialized within the cage his heart rate skyrocketed. Not again. Not this. Not here. But…it wasn't. It wasn't the cage of his memories; not completely. This cage was different. The heat was as intense as ever, and the monster who'd brought him here stretched and basked in its perverted radiance. The smell of sulfur and the sound of screams remained, but his one-time companions were not in evidence. No Adam, no Lucifer, no Michael filled the grotesque confines of the cage. As it was on the beach, once again Sam was alone with the manticore._

 _The beast looked around, considering. "As I said, you have some interesting and unpleasant things in that mind of yours. This place is loud and noxious, but appropriate for our next challenge. And it is warm." Purr, purr. "You humans don't appreciate proper weather. Any time the temperature gets above half reasonable you complain. Look at you." It gestured with its front paw, its scaled tail swishing in annoyance. "Sweating already. So disgusting. To be wet all the time." It tracked toward Sam as it spoke, backing the man into a corner and sitting back on its haunches before him._

 _"You have ten friends. Around you, you will see 100 locked boxes, each numbered 1-100. Each of your friends will have a key, for a total of ten. Inside each of the boxes will be a card, with a single word written on it."_

 _Sam struggled to hear and remember the details, but his head filled with the memories this setting forced to the fore. He heard the manticore over a cacophony of screams, between flashbacks of terror unimaginable to any who hadn't experienced it. And now his loved ones were arriving in this place he would not wish any save Lucifer to see. Jody and Claire arrived first, with Garth, Ash, Rufus and Kevin right behind. The manticore considered, pausing, before materializing Sarah, Lisa, and Ben, who had grown taller than Sam remembered as he reached his teen years. Last, twisting the knife, the manticore brought Charlie from her rest in heaven. Sam staggered to see her in this place._

 _Oblivious—or more likely indifferent—to Sam's inability to concentrate, the monstrous feline continued explaining its riddle. "Each of the lockers will open and close to my commands. The first will open all lockers. The second will close every second locker. The third will change the status of every third locker. If it is open, it will close; if closed it will open. The fourth will change every fourth locker." Purr purr purr. "It will continue in such a way for 100 steps."_

 _Sam couldn't listen. His stomach rebelled and he dry-heaved. Sweat streamed from him, mixing with tears he hadn't realized he was shedding. He watched his loved ones as they reacted to this place; this almost-personal Hell. They couldn't be here. Please let them not be here._

 _Lisa and Ben, who looked so much like Dean, held one another in fear. Castiel had wiped their memory of the supernatural. They did not understand anything they saw here. Little more did Sarah, who had reached heaven at Crowley's hand and likely had been happy moments ago._

 _The hunters weren't as lucky. Realization of where they had to be dawned on each face in turn._

 _Ash paled to a color to match his name. The first to understand the 'game', he soon stood focused and listening to the manticore's dialogue._

 _As Charlie recognized where she must be from Carver Edlund's descriptions, she moved to stand at Sam's side. The arm she put across his shoulders and her sympathetic look helped to keep him upright as she, too, carefully listened to their captor._

 _Rufus, Garth, Claire, and Kevin immediately sought out the door to the cage. A combination lock held it tightly. That was new – Sam should have noticed that – the original cage had no door._

 _Unrelentingly, the monster had continued his explanation of the rules for this game. Sam was hopelessly lost. "The boxes which remain open at the end of this sequence will contain the words which will help you open that door. There are three possible outcomes from this riddle. If you wait through all 100 iterations, you will know which are the correct boxes, but the papers will disappear and the cage will remain locked. I will leave, and your compatriots will learn much more about this place of your memories."_

 _Sam shuddered, and Charlie tightened her arm around him. Claire ceased her inspection of the cage, and she and Jody moved almost as one to stand between Sam and the manticore; a protective wall within the cage, made of family._

 _Sam realized that none of the imprisoned visitors had yet uttered a word, and given the monster's threats during its last challenge, Sam didn't dare unless given permission. Instead, he looked his question at the manticore._

 _"There is no need that they speak, hence they cannot speak. If they could, you'd have their sympathies." It sounded anything but sympathetic, throwing this as an offhand comment over its shoulder. "I have no interest in their human babble. If I may continue, now that you're done with your tiny displays of emotion?"_

 _Charlie's and Rufus's glares joined Sam's. They didn't faze the monster either._

 _"A second possible outcome," the manticore continued. "If any of your friends attempt to open the wrong box with their key, the box will remain locked and I eat that man or woman." Here it stretched languidly, and turned to regard its captives like the mice it had found in a trap. "If you open the correct boxes – and only the correct boxes – before I finish my sequence, clues will be revealed. These clues will lead to a combination which will open the cage door."_

 _Tears of frustration began to leak from Sam's eyes. The instructions were complex, and his mind clouded. He'd missed them. His friends – his family – would remain here, in a place beyond nightmares, because Sam. Couldn't. Concentrate._

 _Ash stepped forward as the 100 boxes appeared, a stack filling one wall of the cage, floor to ceiling and side to side. He smirked, then raised his right hand to playfully smack Sam's cheek, perhaps harder than was strictly necessary. 'I've got this one,' was clear in his eyes. After a moment, Sam nodded reluctantly. There was nothing else he could do._

 _The manticore raised an expectant eyebrow. "Shall we begin?"_

 _"Wait." Sam pushed out the word. "Ash? You know where we're going with this?"_

 _Ash looked at him again, shrugging his arms in an all-too-confident and familiar gesture, clearly meaning 'Who do you think you're talking to?' He looked his hand, where a key had suddenly appeared. Then he looked to the people around him._

 _Charlie held a key numbered "1". Ash pointed at her, and then at one of the boxes. A considering look appeared on her face. None of the boxes had yet opened. After a moment comprehension seemed to set in, and Charlie smiled. She put out a fist to Ash. He cocked his head and bumped it. She nodded confidently to Sam, and opened box number 1, pulling an envelope out. Nothing else happened. The manticore purred louder, that laughing tone returning. Sam's shoulders sagged in relief._

 _In turn, Ash directed each of the prisoners to a box. Four, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, and finally 100, opened by a shaking Ben who never let go of his mother's hand. Each prisoner passed his or her envelope to Charlie, who opened them to reveal the words "The – code – is – the – first – five – boxes - to – have – been – changed – only – twice."_

 _Charlie stepped to the lock, and began entering a combination. Ash started in alarm. He followed her, looking over her shoulder, and then began to nod as she turned the dial confidently to 2,3,5,7, and finally 11. At the moment the door swung open, the prisoners regained their voices._

 _Ash, typically, was the first to use his. To Charlie he said, "Any chance you're dead?"_

 _"Um…yes?"_

 _"You dating anyone?"_

 _Sam missed Charlie's reply – probably something along the lines of 'You're not my type' – as everyone and everything faded out around him. He found himself back in the white world, the manticore purring and pacing beside him. His family was gone, presumably back to the heavens and earth they belonged in. Sam sagged in relief and allowed himself to cry in earnest._

**************************SPN**********************

Jody and Claire woke to find Dean pacing the living room floor. He jumped when one of them moved, and then hurried to Claire's side to help her rise.

"You OK?"

Claire shook her head to clear it. "Yeah. Where was that place?"

Jody responded, "Hell. It was a cage in Hell. It's in the books." Her shock showed plainly on her face. _Sam had been there for months._

Dean's face drained of all color as realization of where they must have been hit him, and he pulled Claire closer, holding her tightly. "Son of a bitch. We have to get him out of there."

Claire nodded, pushing slightly to back Dean away and ending the unexpected show of emotion. "Someone there knew the answer to the riddle. I didn't get it. Did you, Jody?"

She shook her head. "No, but I'm glad those two were there." She opened her laptop. "We've got to figure out how to kill that damned thing."

 **(Answer below for those playing along at home – sorry I couldn't work it into the story less awkwardly; it would have been out of character for these three to have figured it out. They're smart, but they're not Ash or Charlie.)**

 **The answer relies on knowing how many times any given box would open or close. Each, commanded to change 100 times based upon the stated progression – 1 changes all, 2 changes every second, 3 changes every third… will mean each box is changed in its position once for each factor which makes up the number of that box. Vague memory of middle school math will tell you that most numbers have an even number of factors (the factors of 24 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24); but perfect squares have an odd number of factors (the factors of 25 are 1, 5, and 25) because you multiply one number by itself. In the first part of the riddle, the only boxes left open at the end of the progression will be the ones changed an odd number of times; numbers which are perfect squares (1,** **4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, and 100).**

 **The second part of the riddle says the combination was the first five numbers changed only twice. The only numbers with two factors are prime numbers. So the combination was 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 (1 is arguably a prime, but it would only have changed once).**

 **In case you're wondering, Yes. I am aware that I'm a Royal Nerd.**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: King Mithridates of Persia

Two hours had passed without any of the group in the cabin sinking into Sam's mind again. They'd used the time for planning and research.

Over the past hour, Sam had started whimpering in his sleep, and despite repeated applications of holy water a dark purplish color had begun to slowly take over his left leg, creeping downward from the punctures left by the manticore's spines. While Dean talked with Claire, working through ideas for ending the perverse standoff, he alternated between compulsively checking his brother's condition, and pacing the floor. His voice was slowly building in volume as Sam continued to worsen.

His frustration grew until, "We're not GETTING ANYWHERE."

Claire winced, but returned the older hunter's glare with one of her own. She was getting used to his temper, but didn't like to have it directed at her. _She_ hadn't tried to eat his brother. "We are getting somewhere. We're narrowing in on the manticore's location. You still have holy oil. Our plan is sound. We track down the monster, come at it from three directions, and push it against that ridge you found using small burns of holy oil. You tossed the stuff on it, and even without you needing to light it, the thing ran. He's afraid of it. We can use that."

Dean stopped his pacing and opened his mouth to shout again, but Claire spoke over him, "It's a GOOD PLAN."

"IT DOESN'T MATTER that it's a good plan. It relies on all three of us BEING THERE. It'll take all three of us to trap and burn the manticore. We'll have to all be here in the physical world, or we have to figure out a way to take holy oil with us when we pop into WHEREVER again. This won't work if the manticore traps us in there again without our weapon. Bottom line, we're not going to be able to trap the thing if we keep getting kidnapped. We're gonna have to either get Sam out of there so the manticore can't take us in there, get Sam to make the thing so busy and distracted it can't start another riddle and pull any of us in, or take holy oil in there with us the next time we get zapped!" He lifted the bandage on Sam's leg again, seeing the purple bruising which had now crept past his brother's knee. He threw the bandage across the room with an inarticulate growl. After a pause, his voice lowered and a note of fear entered it as he continued, "And Sam's leg is not going to last much longer. He's…"

Jody raised her hand to stop Dean's voicing what they were all thinking. She looked up from the computer she'd been using for research. Her eyes were hopeful. "I think I may have something."

"On how to get the manticore out of Sam's head? 'Cause I'm all ears." Dean didn't look 'all ears.' He practically vibrated, caught somewhere between pissed and exhausted.

"Um, no. On how to keep ourselves out of the manticore's dreamworld while we trap it. And maybe how to counteract that poison in Sam's leg." Now Dean really was paying full attention. "I was reading about poisons in ancient Persia…"

"Of course you were," Dean mumbled.

"Shut up," replied Jody in a distracted fashion, earning a surprised look from the elder Winchester. "Listen, 'During the time of the First Mithridatic War, a group of Mithridates' friends plotted to kill him with poison.' He was king of Persia," she explained.

Dean waved his hand in a 'continue' motion. This sort of storytelling was more Sam's thing than his.

"The king survived the plot, found those responsible, and killed all of the conspirators. First he paralyzed them with the same poison they'd given him, and then he made them disappear. People figured he tossed them into the Persian Gulf. It's thought that he did the same to all of the plotters' families and friends, but they don't know for sure. The entire families and close friends of the plotters disappeared. They were never seen again. People said it was like they'd never existed." She looked up. "Sound familiar?"

Claire came to stand beside her, reading over her shoulder. "What did he use to paralyze them?"

"It doesn't say; but it does say he survived their attempt to kill him using something that came to be called Mithridate, named after him." She pointed to her screen, "I've got the recipe right here."

Claire studied the screen carefully before asking incredulously, "You found the recipe for manticore poison antidote on Wikipedia?"

"Apparently," she replied, "I'm gonna have to spend more time on Wikipedia if I'm going to be helping out you crazy hunters."

Claire read from the page, "Mithradates is said to have so fortified his body against poisons that when he tried to kill himself, he could not find any poison that would have an effect, and had to ask a soldier to run him through with a sword. The recipe for the antidote was found in his cabinet, written with his own hand."

Dean was over the explanations. "Great. What's in it?"

***********************SPN**************************

 _The white space was blinding after the dimness of the cage, but as the sound of screaming and the smells of torture and sulfur left his senses, Sam began to be able to concentrate again. He'd survived. His family had survived. Innocent people – people who belonged in Heaven or on Earth – wouldn't have to stay in that…that…place. He hadn't doomed his family. His body shook, an uncontrolled shuddering reaction to the picture that came to his mind of Charlie and Lisa and Ben sentenced to the cage for eternity. They were innocent, and the innocent should never know that place exists; let alone… He forced the thought away and controlled his breathing._

 _The manticore sat, patiently regarding his prisoner like a cat with a mouse. When it seemed Sam was cognizant of its presence again, it tilted its human head to one side. "I see inside of you, human," A low growl underlay its tone, "I am one thousand years old, and even I am shocked by the evil you remember. What sort of a human remembers such things?" It began to pace away with a determined air, and Sam followed for lack of a reason not to. "Your friends are resourceful. And you love them." It said thoughtfully._

 _When Sam didn't answer, the growl grew louder._

 _"I will find us another playground." The monster kept walking, and after a few minutes it seemed to step in normal stride from the white space onto a dark, two-lane highway which stretched, lonely, into the distance before and behind. Unlike the other two places the manticore had taken them this one was cold, and a light misting rain sprinkled down on the two visitors. The manticore looked up, its mouth twisted in disgust. It seemed almost petulant as it said, "I told you that you have no proper respect for good weather. This is no fitting place; it is barely any sort of place at all. And yet, it is the place you feel most at home. You, Samuel Winchester, are a strange beast."_

 _"Home?" Sam asked, incredulously. "This isn't my…" And then it was. Baby was parked just behind a turn in the road. Her passenger door hung open._

 _Almost…it was almost home…but not quite. Dean wasn't seated behind the wheel._

**********************SPN*******************

Most of the ingredients for Mithradate's antidote were quite easy to find – _probably shouldn't have been surprising, considering it was on Wikipedia*_ Dean thought – but measuring and mixing the nearly 40 different components was time consuming. When it was finally ready, Dean mixed it with honey as instructed and took a generous amount in a bowl to the couch where Sam lay.

The younger man remained unconscious, his head furrowed in pain now rather than the fear Dean had seen when the manticore took his baby brother back into that accursed cage. Sam was shivering slightly under his blanket, but Dean had no idea if that chill came from the manticore's hallucination or from the poison's effects.

Dean lifted Sam's blanket off of where the puncture wounds had been. Those wounds were red and raw now, and the black liquid from earlier was back. More terrifying, however, was the look of the leg around them. Sam's leg was now black from mid-thigh to toes, as if someone had dipped it in coal, and the coloring was visibly moving upward toward parts that Dean was sure his brother would rather remain unaffected. Dean gently once again rinsed the wounds with holy water; Sam stiffened and groaned slightly as the water came into contact and nearly immediately evaporated in a cloud of steam. Dean closed his eyes, biting back his own grief at causing his brother pain.

And then Dean dropped the holy water and antidote, falling still across his brother's body.

**************************SPN*******************

 _Dean woke on the side of a misty, dark road. Sam and the Manticore were both there, of course, but so were many more people. Most, he recognized. Others were strangers. Each, including Dean himself, was standing in a long line along one edge of the road. Sam leaned against Baby at the start of the line some 50 meters from the elder Winchester. Dean tried to move to his brother's side, but found his feet fastened by some invisible force to the graveled verge. The line of men and women spread long beyond Dean, well off into the distance and around a bend where Dean could not see it._

 _Sam's eyes met his own. The younger man was obviously in pain, favoring his leg and holding onto the dream of Dean's car as if to remain upright. Did dream-world Sam feel what was happening to his real-world body? Dean attempted a reassuring smile and flashed his brother a faux-confident 'thumbs-up', but Sam saw the truth behind the gesture. Dean was tired, and worried. Sam's expressive face pinched before he stood, trying to hide his pain. He fooled Dean no more than he'd been fooled._

 _Noticing the exchange, the manticore rolled its shoulders in an annoyed way. It growled under its breath, once again staring at the cloudy sky as if it existed to give him some type of personal insult. Sam's eyebrow rose – it wasn't like the monster hadn't picked the weather itself. Certainly there were roads in Sam's memory which were clear and sunny. Sam remained silent, though, having learned to hold his tongue so as not to encourage the beast to further cruelty. His impatience matched the monster's._

 _He didn't need to wait long. With a half-human grunt, the manticore rose from its haunches and began pacing down the line of memories it had assembled. Sam saw that the line contained family, friends, and old school mates going back throughout Sam's varied life. The line stretched on and on as Sam followed the manticore. As they moved slowly past Dean, Sam's older brother tapped his left wrist with his right hand. Sam took a deep breath. 'Stall for time.' Sam nodded once and hoped he could._

 _The manticore, residing inside Sam's mind, of course noticed the interchange. It smirked and purr-laughed at these humans' folly. They always thought they could win. Sam had, in fact, done better than each of the other humans he'd hunted in this new land. They were an uneducated bunch, these people. They'd failed to remember the games and riddles of their ancestors. It had brought their quick demise, but hadn't really given the monster any enjoyment. This one…this boy and his friends which he called in his mind 'family'… this one was different. He'd passed the beast's two previous tests, and so the manticore would be merciful. He would spare the man's life. But the manticore needed to live too. He needed to eat. He would allow this human to choose WHO he ate. It was a mercy he reserved for few of his playmates._

 _The manticore's voice BOOMED throughout the dream world. "In Rome's army, in the time when the legions conquered the lands of my people, the generals had a tool. This tool was a great motivator for the Roman soldiers," it began, pacing slowly as Sam's mind cataloged the faces they passed. He had seen thirty men and women so far; one every two paces. The line still stretched on beyond sight. "The motivator worked," and here the beast purred his feline chuckle, "for nine legionnaires out of ten."_

 _Sam's attention sharpened and his eyes snapped to focus upon the manticore's face._

 _The beast purred. "You have heard of this motivating technique." Its human eyes danced with merriment._

 _"Decimation," Sam answered grimly. "You're talking about decimation."_

 _Behind them, unnoticed by the purr-chuckling manticore, Dean faded out of the dream._

*************************SPN**********************

The first words he said, before he was even fully conscious of the cabin resolving around him, was "What the hell is 'decimation'?" The growl in Dean's voice as he said it would have impressed the manticore.

Claire stepped back from him, holding a glass of wine which she'd laced with the antidote they'd mixed. Her face was surprised and confused, but that particular voice demanded an answer. "I don't know," she responded, looking to Jody for help.

The sheriff was in the process of standing from the floor, shaking her head to clear it; Dean decided she'd probably been in that line somewhere too, and had been wakened with Dean by Claire's administration of the antidote. Jody, at least, knew where the question had come from. Looking at her ashen face, Dean was sure she knew the answer as well. He was not disappointed on that count.

"Decimation was a way Roman armies punished companies that ran away in the heat of a losing battle. The legion generals would line up all of the companies and give the company commanders a choice. They could either kill themselves, or one out of ten of their soldiers."

"One out of..." Dean's eyes flashed angrily, and his eyes came to focus sharply on the worried lines of his brother's face. "If you fall on your damned Roman sword, I'm going to freakin' kill you. You hear me? We're coming for you. Don't freaking decimate yourself in the meantime."

 *** Seriously. I found it on Wikipedia. The recipe for a legendary millennium-old Persian all-poison antidote can be found on Wikipedia. Sometimes research makes me happy (see earlier comments re: nerd-royalty). If you're interested, Mithridate is:**

 **costmary, 1-66 grams; sweet flag, 20 grams; hypericum, 8 grams; Natural gum, 8 grams; sagapenum, 8 grams; acacia juice, 8 grams; Illyrian iris, 8 grams; cardamom, 8 grams; anise, 12 grams; Gallic nard, 16 grams; gentian root, 16 grams; dried rose leaves, 16 grams; poppy-tears (Papaver rhoeas, a wild poppy with low opiate content), 17 grams; parsley, 17 grams; casia, 20-66 grams; saxifrage, 20-66 grams; darnel, 20-66 grams; long pepper, 20-66 grams; storax, 21 grams; castoreum, 24 grams; frankincense, 24 grams; hypocistis juice, 24 grams; myrrh, 24 grams; opopanax, 24 grams; malabathrum leaves, 24 grams; flower of round rush, 24-66 grams; turpentine-resin, 24-66 grams; galbanum, 24-66 grams; Cretan carrot seeds, 24-66 grams; nard, 25 grams; opobalsam, 25 grams; shepherd's purse, 25 grams; rhubarb root, 28 grams; saffron, 29 grams; ginger, 29 grams; cinnamon, 29 grams.**

 **The ingredients are pounded and "a piece the size of an almond is given in wine." It can also be mixed in honey and rubbed on the skin to prevent toxins being taken up in that way.**

 **My nerd self sorta wants to see how it tastes. Probably not good...**


	5. Recovering the Legion

Chapter 5: Recovering the Legion

 _Inside Sam's dream-scape, the hunter and the manticore had reached the end of the line of friends and family the monster had assembled. After indicating his understanding of the monster's latest 'game', Sam had been silent for the rest of their measured walk down, quite literally, memory lane. He'd concentrated on counting rather than on the choice he faced. Ninety men and women stood on the misty road, shivering and confused. Some likely thought they were inside a nightmare. Sam hoped most of them did. He hoped they'd wake from their forced slumber and tell people "I had this weird dream…" In his mind, he'd already decided that they would. Because they would wake. All of them. There was no way Sam was going to let the manticore eat nine innocents in his place. There was no way he'd let it eat_ one.

 _But Dean had told him to stall for time. This, he would do, for as long as the manticore allowed him to continue. Dean had a plan. That plan would either play out in the real world, or it wouldn't. Sam would stall until the manticore wouldn't let him stall any further. And then, if he were still here, Sam would let the beast eat him._

 _There was no other way he could allow this game to end._

*************************SPN*************************

Dean carefully re-rinsed Sam's leg with holy water and then spread the sticky antidote mixture over Sam's wounds. He knew his brother; knew how this 'game' would end if he couldn't fix this. While working, the elder Winchester alternated between angrily demanding, "Don't you dare do anything stupid you big nerd," and muttering "I've got you. We're gonna solve this," to the younger man's recumbent form. He gently eased the honey mixture onto his brother's darkened flesh, which now covered Sam's leg from the puncture wounds to his foot.

The antidote seemed to help some in lessening the younger man's pain. Sam's sleeping deepened, the pinched look on his face easing. Dean completed his task, and then after a moment of consideration, gritted his teeth, asked the women to turn around, and spread the stuff…further North as well. When Claire and Jody turned to face him once more, the elder Winchester's cheeks were red but his eyes clearly indicated that their comments were unwelcome. Neither made one. When the evidence of the manticore's damage to his brother's limb was covered, Dean tried to ease some of the antidote mix into Sam's mouth, to pull him back from the manticore's dreamworld as he and Jody had been. Sam coughed and choked in his sleep, unable to swallow the wine mixture.

Sam was as well treated as was possible. It was time to end this.

The three hunters moved quickly to implement their plan. Holy oil, matches, and assorted weapons were gathered into the sheriff's official SUV – even Dean admitted that its four-wheel-drive would get them to the remote area of the forest they were going to more easily than would Baby – and Dean, Claire, and Jody piled in. Dean felt almost a physical tearing pain as Jody drove off and they left Sam behind, but the trio had no other choice. They had to kill the manticore before his idiotic self-sacrificing bitch of a brother let that damned Persian pussycat kill him.

**********************SPN*********************

 _On the side of a two-lane road inside a memory, Sam considered his options. He cleared his throat and addressed the manticore politely, hoping to avoid a re-run of the thing's fury when upset back on the beach. "Sir," he began,_

 _"Xerot."_

 _"Excuse me?"_

 _"My name," hissed the manticore, "is Xerot. Yours is Samuel. I have given you the respect of using your name. It is high time you do me the same curtesy."_

 _Honestly, Sam had never considered that the thing_ had _a name. So much for not pissing it off. Focus. Stall for time. If the thing wanted to argue, Sam could oblige. He winced inwardly, affected a tone haughty enough to match the manticore's, and responded, "My name is not Samuel. It is Sam. Perhaps I have not given you respect, but neither have you. You call me by a name which is not mine. I will call you Xerot if and only if you will call me Sam."_

 _The manticore growled, and its lip twisted with resentment at the hubris of this puny being, but it responded grudgingly, "It is an agreement." Pause. "Sam."_

 _OK. Maybe it didn't want to argue. Maybe it wanted to deal. Time to re-ingratiate himself. He bowed politely, "It is an agreement, Xerot."_

 _The monster's too-human eyes crinkled with something approaching humor, and it snorted a purr-laugh. "You are clumsy in your obeisance. But this is amusing none-the-less. You are an amusing companion. It is a shame that we must soon part." It sat, firmly, and its amusement seemed to disappear as it focused disconcertingly upon Sam's face. "Because now we have come to the end of our games. You have won. You will not die today. Like retreating Legions, you will withdraw from this battlefield. Choose your offering. Who among your remembered companions is to face decimation, my Roman commander?"_

 _Sam looked along the line of innocent (and not so innocent, he admitted, his eyes alighting upon a man who'd once bullied him unmercifully in middle school) men and women assembled. He couldn't choose among them. He wouldn't. But Dean had tapped his watch. Sam addressed the manticore. "How am I supposed to choose from the legion if I don't know who to choose? I barely remember some of these people. Let me talk to them. Let me remember who deserves mercy, Xerot, and who should not."_

**********************SPN****************************

The SUV pulled to a halt at the head of a trail ten minutes from Jody's cabin. Before she had even turned off its engine, Dean was out of the vehicle and shouldering his duffel bag, giving orders and pointing out directions to Jody and Claire. As he fell into his accustomed commanding persona, even Claire's instinct to roll her eyes was forgotten. The other hunters moved to follow Dean's instructions. They set off down the trail, soon separating to three different directions. They would find the manticore, surround it, and herd it to their planned trap.

************************SPN**************************

 _The manticore had begun to look bored. Sam had spoken in turn to twenty one people. He remembered each of them, from a case or a class in his past. Some were friends, some not; none deserved to die._

 _And then they reached a gap in Xerot's carefully curated line. One person had stood every two paces, but there were four empty strides here. The manticore hissed his displeasure, and roared "WHAT IS THIS?"_

 _Sam ducked before the conscious thought came, instinct and long practice taking over for a moment. It likely saved his life. Xerot's massive paw seemed to almost whistle over Sam's head. The people in the line nearby screamed and pulled at their invisible restraints, unable to run from this nightmare beast._

 _"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" It rushed him. Sam ducked again, rolling to avoid the monster and feeling its warm breath blow across him as Xerot's teeth snapped closed inches from Sam's right shoulder._

 _Then it was fully and violently moving inside Sam's head. He could_ feel _it in there, almost physically pulling at Sam's mind, looking for his deceit; for the plan Sam didn't know. There was nothing to find. Sam took the chance this hesitation offered. He ran._

***********************SPN***************************

Jody sighted it first. The manticore lay, sleeping soundly, on a rocky ledge in a bright sunbeam some twenty meters in front of her and several meters above. From this distance, the manticore looked comfortable and catlike. It also looked as if it wasn't planning to wake any time soon. Jody's first thought was that maybe she could end this immediately; that she'd pour the holy oil upon it and burn it before it woke. That plan was forgotten as she carefully moved closer to the monster and it caught her scent.

Suddenly awake, the manticore stood to its full, impressive height. Its voice GROWLED through Jody, and she heard its human words booming through the nearby forest, "WHAT IS THIS?"

Dean and Claire heard it too. Their hunt had begun in earnest.

***********************SPN**************************

 _Sam hadn't expected to be able to get away. The manticore was, after all, inside of Sam's mind. There was nowhere for him to go that Xerot wouldn't know of at the instant Sam arrived._

 _And yet, minutes passed without Sam seeing the beast. The hunter took full advantage of this unexpected reprieve, running in and among the trees which bordered the dream-road. Those trees now seemed startlingly real, and strangely familiar._

 _He'd been here before. Recently. He stretched for the memory. And then, there it was. Allen's Point. Sam's memory, or perhaps Xerot's, had taken him back to where this hunt had begun._

***********************SPN***************************

Jody yelled, startled by the manticore's sudden, full, presence. Her confusion didn't last long, however. She pushed fear out of her way – stowed, but not forgotten – and pulled their plan back to the forefront of her mind. The beast leaped off of its perch and toward her. Pulling the stopper off of her small jug of holy oil, she sprinkled a thin line of it on the ground between herself and the oncoming monster. Then she lit it and threw herself backward, out of the way of the resulting fire and the manticore's rush.

The manticore, midway through a leap toward this puny human who SHOULD have been inside of his memory trap, took a second too long to identify the danger it faced. It landed too close to the burning pool of holy oil. Its growl turned to an all-too-human screech and it jumped haphazardly aside, the underside of its forepaw scorched black.

The catlike monstrosity faced the puny human who had hurt it, and hissed.

Jody all but growled back at it, spraying holy oil and yelling for Dean and Claire as the manticore shied back from this woman and her unexpected weapon.

*************************SPN*************************

 _Sam heard a familiar shout. Jody's voice? He turned and ran toward it as answering calls sounded from his left and right. Dean. Claire. How were they here?_

***********************SPN***************************

The manticore ran, three-legged, through the forest, seeking high ground and an advantage over this horrid woman and her burning oil. As he surged forward, however, he found another thin, burning line of the stuff, behind which he smelled the scent of another human female.

He avoided this pool easily, leaping sideways and circling again toward higher ground. Six long strides found it turning again, stumbling this time away from a human male – his captor's brother – who was waving a flaming branch and shouting obscenities.

Again and again the manticore was turned, as he ran, loped, stumbled, or snuck along paths. Until before him rose a steep rock wall, too high to jump and to sheer to climb. Xerot could hear the human hunters gaining from all other directions. The manticore retreated the only way still open to him; into the dreamworld and Sam's memories.

************************SPN************************

 _The massive manticore appeared suddenly in the forest before Sam, frothy with sweat and howling with anger. Its roaring, hissing, wordless rage sounded in Sam's ears, and he instinctively covered them. Xerot took advantage of that moment to leap upon him, pinning Sam to the ground under its immense weight._

They reappeared in the waking world together; Sam's wounds resurfacing in full as his body and mind were pulled into one place. Sam lay pinned, prone and bloody beneath the huge, roaring beast. He screamed in agony as the monster applied his weight atop the hunter's torn stomach.

Dean, Claire, and Jody, each carrying a branch coated in holy oil and flame, heard Sam's yell and halted in their converging progress toward the monster. They stared at the scene before them; the manticore standing, covered in froth, streaked with black ash and flecked with Sam's blood, looming above the wounded hunter. Sam's blood had begun to flow from reopened lacerations onto the rocks below. The result was a clash of red blood, grey stone, and yellow lion fur. Sam's paling face looked colorless, out of place in the horror-show Technicolor tableau.

"Sam!" Dean attempted to approach, wildly waving his burning branch, trying to back the monster off of his brother.

"Dean." Sam's voice was a quiet half-moan; almost too quiet to hear through the chaos that surrounded him. "Stop. Wait."

The manticore shifted and, "AAAAHHHHHHHHH," a scream was torn once more from Sam.

"SAM!"

"No." Sam started again, holding a hand out to stop his brother and their friends, who had also moved forward at Sam's shriek. "Xerot."

A rumbling growl came from the wounded beast, but it looked down at its captive. "Whhhattt?" It hissed.

"I won."

It stopped, staring at the man half crushed beneath its one good forepaw. "What?" It asked again, its voice a deadly quiet to match the hunter's.

"I won," Sam repeated. He grunted, holding in another scream as the manticore shifted again. "We won." He indicated his friends. "We answered your riddles; we played your game. And now we've trapped you."

"You."

"Yes, us. You made the rules." Grunt. "We played by your rules. We won. Are you going to prove a dishonorable cheat now?"

"You say you have trapped me; but I have trapped you also, my Roman captain." It leaned forward, its weight pressing the air out of Sam's lungs so that the man couldn't even yell in his pain. Its human eyes looked directly into his. "So who has won?"

Dean saw the light flickering lower in his brother's eyes as breathlessness took what energy hadn't drained with Sam's blood. He stepped forward, continuing Sam's train of thought. "We did." The manticore's attention focused on the elder Winchester. "You know we did. We answered the little riddles you gave us. And bigger riddle. Who are you? We answered it, and we found you, and we won. You lost. Sam asked you a question. Are you going to cheat now?"

The manticore looked stunned. It sat back, removing its paw from Sam's chest. Sam's weak gasping inhalation was the only indication that he was still aware, still conscious.

Dean moved forward again carefully, holding his branch in front of him even as its flames died slowly to embers. He kept his eyes on the monster, but reached out a hand to feel for Sam's. When Sam grasped his hand in return, Dean nearly sank to his knees in relief. He held on tightly and continued to speak to the beast before him.

"You gonna cheat at your own game, or are you gonna play fair?"

Its mouth twisted in disgust, but it spat out a hissing answer. "I am honorable." It turned away from the brothers.

"I'm not. CLAIRE!"

A shot rang out. Hit by the salt in Claire's shotgun, a bucket tipped from a ledge several feet above the manticore's head. As a sheet of holy oil cascaded downward, Dean yanked his brother out of the way. Jody flung a lighter into the fray as the brothers toppled clear.

The resulting inferno engulfed the monster, reducing him to ash and cinders in minutes.

Dean watched the flames, shielding Sam's bloodied form with his own body. Once the result was no longer in question, Dean looked down at his brother. Sam lay on the forest ground, his eyes closed tightly and his jaw clenched, grunting with each pained breath. Half of his stitches were torn out, and his shirt once again was covered in blood.

Pulling out his folding knife, Dean tore open Sam's pants leg, but the skin beneath was clean and pink. The only evidence which remained of the manticore's spines was two black dots, already fading to nothing.

Dean looked back at his brother's face, trapping Sam's eyes with his own. "We got him. We got you. It's over." He flashed an exhausted but genuine grin. "And, man, after we finish sewing you up? You're gonna have the record."

Sam's head rested back against the leafy ground and he managed a pained laugh.

************************SPN************************

Back at the cabin, Dean's prediction proved true.

Sam recovered from his one hundred seventy two stiches slowly.

But that was OK. He did it surrounded by family.

 **Thank you for sticking with me to the end. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, or if you have any constructive criticism, I'd love to hear from you. Comments make the writers dance.**


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